The danger of debating clear and present dangers

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” – Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)
Watching the Frontline debate on RTE earlier this week was a lesson in the danger of mistaking politics as a form of practical art for politics as a real thing with implications for the future.

Pat Kenny, clearly unnerved by the controversy that surrounds the presidential debate, loudly and regularly advertised his attentiveness to balance. The audience were vexed, vocal and engaged with their own opinions and a hotchpotch of the stances and positions that have thus far characterised the debate around the Fiscal Compact Treaty in the Irish media. Whether they declared themselves ‘Yes’, ‘No’ or ‘Undecided’ voters each spoke of the potential for disaster in their opponents’ opinion or, in the case of the ‘undecideds’, wondered if we weren’t just done for either way.

Doom is a clear and present danger in the debate and fear of it a significant part of the arguments of both sides.

On the stage stood representatives of the ‘No’ and ‘Yes’ campaigns and each acquitted themselves well in putting forward their arguments with regard to telling people how to vote in the forthcoming election.
What will have been perfectly clear to most people watching was the divergence and diversity of views on offer. It was not unreasonable to come away from the debate feeling that voting one way or the other would mean the end of Ireland, a grinding halt to job creation, no future for our children and near total Armageddon on the streets of the nation.

Interestingly, the outcomes listed above are shared and completely interchangeable between both sides of the argument. According to each of the speakers, theirs is the way to ensure growth and a bright future, the other side is lying to you the voter and attempting to hoodwink you for their own nefarious ends. Again, as with so many things, neither side is correct.

I would be very surprised if I am alone in believing that either side in this debate is genuinely interested in hoodwinking anyone. What has very clearly happened in this referendum, as in so many others on Europe, is that the main protagonists on each side have fallen into the deep trance of automatic pilot which characterises both politicians and the politicised at the time of a ballot.
In this fog of war, they are right and the enemy is very definitely wrong. This makes for lively debate and those who enjoy a bout of jovially exchanged and at times passionate held views are not disappointed.

The problem, particularly in the case of these European referendums, is that while most people are left with a fairly satisfying taste of blood in their mouths from the political punch-up; they are not entirely sure whose blood it is.

At the end of the bout the satisfied tribes parade loudly back to their respective camps of “YES!” and “NO!” reinvigorated in their belief while the outcasts of the “undecided” people scrabble around in the dirt of the battlefield for some semblance of a truth they can cling to or at the very least depend on to some degree.

Owing to a stipulation in the Irish constitution, which is the envy of Eurosceptics and the bane of Europhiles, these pitched battles over the highly complex vagaries of European treaties come before the people of Ireland periodically. By their very nature they are not the kind of things that stand up to the kind of debate that has come to define our more cherished electoral processes. These are, put bluntly, what we elect people to argue about on our behalf. Even the iconic idealist of freedom Jean Jacques Rousseau acknowledged that the kind of total democracy he advocated in some of his writings would only work in a city-state such as the Geneva of the time where he happened to have been born.

If ‘true democracy’ were to exist, nothing would get done. So we happily make do with representative, parliamentary democracy and, say what we like about it, we haven’t risen up to change it yet.

The longer the current referendum campaign goes on the more attractive the approach of the Referendum Commission has become. Compared to the heat and minimal light of the politicians interactions, the statutory body’s publications and advertisements on the vote seem bland and dull. But they are exactly what the public needs.

The dry facts of what people are voting on are available to them through the website or the literature being delivered all over the country. Personally I believe it was a mistake to remove the obligation of the commission to explain both sides of the argument in 2001 but acknowledge the difficulty that might have caused in the case of the May 31 vote.

A politician can happily bluster their way through the trifling problem of uncertainty with regard to possible consequences and implications of voting one way or another but civil servants of the calibre of those who make up the commission are not given to waffle or bluffing of this kind.
In fact, had the commission been tasked with explaining the arguments for and against they would have faced a very difficult task given the levels of uncertainty surrounding the European project at the moment.

In terms of the vote itself however, the Referendum Commission would seem to be the best place for people to go if they find themselves in the large ‘undecided’ camp. It is the only place where you are guaranteed facts and facts alone.

It may not enlighten on certain issues but neither does it attempt to pretend that it does. This makes it unique in the midst of the current debate.

Whatever camp people have settled themselves in the general consensus is that the forthcoming vote is very important. Perhaps we cannot say exactly why, owing to the complexity of the issues, but there is a feeling that this one matters. The ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ clans certainly believe it does and both are targeting people’s sense of vulnerability and fear in the run up to the vote.

In most cases however they share those same feelings and their appeals could be described as being more about solidarity than exploitation.